1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) machine and method. More specifically, the present invention relates to a machine and method for polishing semi-conductor wafers using a vetically-oriented polisher.
2. Background Art
Current CMP tool design, as shown in FIG. 1, usually includes one or more horizontally-oriented polishing pads 90 which are rotated and saturated with a slurry solution as a rotating wafer is pressed into contact with the pad. As the pad rotates, the wafer is polished. However, due to the large footprint and the high number of required machines, CMP processing takes up very large amounts of manufacturing floor space.
Furthermore, since the pads are oriented horizontally, contaminants, such as pad debris, film residuals, slurry agglomerations, and other foreign material, which can scratch the wafer, is less easily removed from the horizontal pad surface.